Easy/just Basic Hood Light/no Fert/no Kill, Plants...

With roots, no rhizomes to worry about covering up, not the stem type. Is there a plant that has roots I can plant, no rhizome, easy, just basic hood light (although it is bright), no fertilizer, and that I cannot really kill?

With roots, no rhizomes to worry about covering up, not the stem type. Is there a plant that has roots I can plant, no rhizome, easy, just basic hood light (although it is bright), no fertilizer, and that I cannot really kill?

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Crypts are easy plants. You don’t have to worry buying driftwood to tie it to. It’s a really simple plant. Just don’t bury it too deep to where you can only see the leaves.

Pearlweed if you have a finer substrate, but there isn’t really any rooted plant that can thrive without fertilizer. It’s like wanting your kids to grow up strong but at the same time not giving them enough food to eat

Pearlweed if you have a finer substrate, but there isn’t really any rooted plant that can thrive without fertilizer. It’s like wanting your kids to grow up strong but at the same time not giving them enough food to eat

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Nope, have river gravel. I don't have a clue how to give fertilizers to plants in tanks. I was hoping plants would work for me but it seems it won't in the long run. I wanted them to be plush and provide cover and just be green and beautiful. Also wanted it to make the water nicer for the fish in it, but it seems if my plants I have now or coming next week do not do well, I will go back to fake plants. I also like to clean my tanks from time to time by taking everything out and doesn't seem you can do that with real plants that attach and root and grow in your substrate, etc. I am attempting potted plants now and plants attached to plastic canvas and then stuck to the side of the tank with suction cups so I can just take that out if I want to clean the tank top to bottom some day.

I wanted easy potted plants that just grow in water with the fish waste providing fertilizer. I mean my mother used to put her garbage into a pile in the back of the yard and it rotted there and made mulch I guess and then she spread it for fertilizers for the lawn and plants and what not.

Nope, have river gravel. I don't have a clue how to give fertilizers to plants in tanks. I was hoping plants would work for me but it seems it won't in the long run. I wanted them to be plush and provide cover and just be green and beautiful. Also wanted it to make the water nicer for the fish in it, but it seems if my plants I have now or coming next week do not do well, I will go back to fake plants. I also like to clean my tanks from time to time by taking everything out and doesn't seem you can do that with real plants that attach and root and grow in your substrate, etc. I am attempting potted plants now and plants attached to plastic canvas and then stuck to the side of the tank with suction cups so I can just take that out if I want to clean the tank top to bottom some day.

I wanted easy potted plants that just grow in water with the fish waste providing fertilizer. I mean my mother used to put her garbage into a pile in the back of the yard and it rotted there and made mulch I guess and then she spread it for fertilizers for the lawn and plants and what not.

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You can take standard pots, fill them with organic potting soil, lightly cap them with sand or fine gravel, and plant plants in those. Easy to remove (but keep them wet or moist when out of the tank) and the soil can provide nutrients.
Adding fertilizer to planted tanks is pretty straightforward, there are a lot of liquid fertilizers on the market (I like NilocgThrive) and all of them have dosing instructions on the bottle.
Compost is good, I use it myself from the composted chicken bedding, but terrestrial plants are grown in soil, which provides things like iron, magnesium, potassium, etc, which fish alone cannot provide.

If you really want a lush planted tank, it’s not too hard at all with the right equipment and maintenance. You could buy a smaller tank like a 5 or 10 gallon, dirt it (check out the walstad method), invest in a decent light (lights are cheaper for smaller tanks) and just play around to get the hang of caring for plants.

Lastly, George Farmer’s YouTube channel will teach you everything you need to know about plants, even if you decide not to do it it’s still entertaining and inspiring

Most rhizome plants would be the way to go, anubias specifically, for hoodlights and no fert. They will live the longest/look the best. All you have to do is pop them into the tank and wedge them somewhere. Not sure why you’re against them, but they are your best option.

You could plant anacharis and it'll send out roots, but it really just feeds from the water column. I have some in my river gravel and some floating, it does fine without ferts and just the standard kit lighting.

Most rhizome plants would be the way to go, anubias specifically, for hood lights and no fert. They will live the longest/look the best. All you have to do is pop them into the tank and wedge them somewhere. Not sure why you’re against them, but they are your best option.

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I am not really against them. I have anubias, 2 of them, and am waiting for a few more, attacked to driftwood, but I like to clean my tank out from time to time, full breakdown. I haven't done that since I have the 40-G, but with the way too small 5 g that I had my mystery snails in, once a week I had to take everything out, the snails went into a container and the corys, took the tank to the sink and washed it all out because it was gross with all the bioload for the snails and I way overfed, just found out recently. The fake plants I had in there (the too small 5 gallon) were filled with poop and gross gunk, so everything had to be cleaned and the media, never changed it but washed it really well in old tank water. The Rhizome plants tend to dislodge and float around the tank, getting stuck in my skimmer on the filter, which then makes my Tidal filters grind and crunch) drives me batty. I want to plant them, so they stay where I put them, and if I use a pot, I can take the pot out if need be and not worry about uprooting stuff. I rigged up something to attach stem plants to, that I can just remove if need be, but I do not have enough stuff in tank to attach the rhizomes to, so was wanting to plant them and even though I googled it, I can hardly tell what is root and what is rhizome (very new to live plants).

You could plant anacharis and it'll send out roots, but it really just feeds from the water column. I have some in my river gravel and some floating, it does fine without ferts and just the standard kit lighting.

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I have a bit of anaharis in there, but most of it melted and it does not stay where I put it.

You can take standard pots, fill them with organic potting soil, lightly cap them with sand or fine gravel, and plant plants in those. Easy to remove (but keep them wet or moist when out of the tank) and the soil can provide nutrients.
Adding fertilizer to planted tanks is pretty straightforward, there are a lot of liquid fertilizers on the market (I like NilocgThrive) and all of them have dosing instructions on the bottle.
Compost is good, I use it myself from the composted chicken bedding, but terrestrial plants are grown in soil, which provides things like iron, magnesium, potassium, etc, which fish alone cannot provide.

If you really want a lush planted tank, it’s not too hard at all with the right equipment and maintenance. You could buy a smaller tank like a 5 or 10 gallon, dirt it (check out the walstad method), invest in a decent light (lights are cheaper for smaller tanks) and just play around to get the hang of caring for plants.

Lastly, George Farmer’s YouTube channel will teach you everything you need to know about plants, even if you decide not to do it it’s still entertaining and inspiring

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I guess I have not figured out how the fertilizer goes into the plant and not all around the tank water. I will look up George Farmer.

Well the fertilizer does go all around in the water, but submersed aquatic plants have the ability to take in nutrients from their leaves as well as roots, so as water moves past the plant the plants takes nutrients in from the water column. Which is also why good circulation is very important in planted tanks.

It doesn't get much easier than hornwort and marimo moss balls. Just drop them in the tank and you're done. You can also plant stalks of hornort to anchor it. It does not possess true roots and feeds exclusively from the water column. In the shrimp tank at work it gets sunlight throughout the day and grows unbelievably quickly.

It doesn't get much easier than hornwort and marimo moss balls. Just drop them in the tank and you're done. You can also plant stalks of hornort to anchor it. It does not possess true roots and feeds exclusively from the water column. In the shrimp tank at work it gets sunlight throughout the day and grows unbelievably quickly.

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Don't really like marimo moss, had it once, tiny balls, and they just rotted in the tank. These were betta tanks. Will look at hornwort.

The rhizome is the long twig like structure that both the leaves and roots grow from. Likely I can find a pic and label if it helps, just let me know if the description isn’t clear enough.

I’ve used plant weights on a rhizome to hold them down vs attaching them to something, works well. Also makes them totally movable. Hornwort can be held down by plant weights as well. Both anubias and ferns (Java’s, bolbitis, etc) also work with the weights.

Sounds like the experience in the 5g was more due to care/filtration and you’ve now corrected that so likely you won’t run into the same issues. Be sure to vacuum the gravel with each wc, esp in areas where there are no plants planted.
As for the pots... if you wanted to attach rhizome plants to something you could use the outside of the pot... just be aware that a pot laying empty on its side will collect gunk so again, get the vac in there. Most stem plants won’t love being grown in pots, esp if they are being removed from the tank.

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